EALING Council is facing 20 per cent cash cut in its the grant it receives from Government over the next two years, forcing it to make the biggest budget cuts in living memory.
In the provisional local government settlement announced on Monday, the council discovered it had one of the worst grant settlements in outer London.
Ealing is facing a grant reduction of 12 per cent next year, which is a bigger cut than the outer London average reduction of 11 per cent.
Council leader Julian Bell, a Labour councillor, said: “The scale of cuts being forced on local authorities is unprecedented. We had planned to reduce budgets by 25 per cent over the next three years, yet our main government grant will be slashed by 20 per cent in just two years.
“We took the sensible precaution to plan for these cuts so that we didn’t have to slash and slice indiscriminately but I am in no doubt that this tough financial settlement will cause real pain to our residents."
Cllr Bell said the council was “doing everything possible” to protect frontline services, but he added: “Given the amount of reductions needed and the savage speed at which they are being made, it is inevitable that we will run out of these types of savings and have less time to recoup the money from the changes we are introducing.
The key settlement facts include:
- Ealing’s formula (main) grant will reduce in 2011/12 by £21million in cash terms, reducing it to £145million.
- Ealing’s formula grant will reduce further in 2012/13 by £13million in cash terms (a reduction of -8.4 per cent.
- The number of specific grants that the council receives has been scaled back and those grants that the council will receive have been cut.
Ealing has also not been allocated any additional specific transition grant to help it adjust to the cuts in funding, unlike Tower Hamlets, Newham and Hackney.
Council tax has already been frozen for next year. Ealing has been asked to respond to the government by January 17 with its comments on the settlement.
